By: Anissa Picard MAT, RMT, CEOLD, MGC
Near-death experiences have occurred in many cultures throughout antiquity, but the first medical report of what is also known as an NDE occurred in France in 1740. A military physician named Pierre Jean de Monchaux wrote about the experience in a book entitled, “Anecdotes de Medecine”. The story describes the case of a patient in Paris who was temporarily unconscious and then reported that he saw a light so pure and bright that he thought he must be in heaven.
What exactly is an NDE or a near-death experience? It has been scientifically described as “a profound psychological event with transcendental and mystical elements" after a life-threatening crisis. An NDE can occur when someone is clinically pronounced dead or is without consciousness for a certain amount of time. They seemingly have similar experiences, describing themselves as floating above the body and being pain-free. Afterward, they can find themselves in a dark place for some time but still aware. Then, they may be met by relatives, angels, or guides that take them through a life review, which is seeing the totality of their life history. In the review, they see how their life affected other people and they feel what those people felt but with much more intensity. They say that the review takes but a split second. Most also see a light at the end of a tunnel and feel drawn to move towards the light, where they feel an intense almost indescribable unconditional love. Near-death experiences can occur during life-threatening events when the body is injured by blunt trauma, a heart attack, shock, and so forth. These include an ability to recall detailed descriptions of the resuscitation, as verified by astounded doctors and nurses. Surgeons say that there is no possible way their patients could describe specifics about the operating room. Over the years they have become much more common, and most surgeons have had patients at one point or another that have had these types of experiences. These mystical experiences can lead to a permanent transformation of not only the patients' lives but the nurses' and doctors' lives as well.
Many people all around the world are having near-death experiences daily, but some of these have been made more aware to the public through books, videos, workshops, and conferences. Introducing you to the following cases allows you to study these experiences for yourselves by watching videos, researching on the Internet, or reading books if you feel called to do so.
A few of these people are Dr. Mary C. Neal, an orthopedic surgeon who had her very own brush with death in a kayak accident in Chile, where she was underwater and without oxygen for over 20 minutes; Dr. Eben Alexander III, a neurosurgeon who contracted bacterial meningitis and who experienced an NDE after being placed in a medically-induced coma; Anita Moorjani, diagnosed with lymphoma, suffered for 4 years before falling into a coma and was on death’s door when she had her NDE; Pam Reynolds Lowery, a singer-songwriter, who had a near-death experience at the age of 35 during brain surgery; Dannion Brinkley, a U.S. Marine, who experienced not one, but 3 different NDEs during his life. The first was from being struck by lightning, the 2nd during heart surgery, and the third during brain surgery. If you research these people that have had these near-death experiences, you will be astonished at their stories! Most of the people who have had these experiences are completely committed to helping others with the realization that death simply does not exist. Some work with dying veterans, and hospice patients; many write books and perform talks to crowds; others conduct workshops and create non-profit charitable organizations to combine science with spirituality for personal and global transformation. Many beautiful creations come from these people who have faced these types of experiences with the spirit realm.
Various studies have been conducted on near-death experiences. One of the pioneers of NDE studies was Raymond Moody, an American philosopher, psychiatrist, physician, and author. In 1975 he published “Life After Life” (1975, Harper One) a collection of over 150 near-death experiences. Pim Van Lommel M.D., a Dutch cardiologist reports that many of his patients had experiences during surgery. Van Lommel is the first to study the subject of non-local consciousness as fundamental to scientifically explain many of the perplexing phenomena of NDE, with his published book, “Consciousness Beyond Life.” (2001, Harper One). Non-local consciousness is not considered to be localized or confined to specific points in space, such as the physical brain and body, nor to specific points in time. Non-local consciousness is the universal interconnected consciousness implied by the concept of one mind. The one mind has also been what many religions call “God”. This thought-provoking notion is being studied by Eternea as well, a non-profit organization founded by Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who encountered an NDE himself.
There is still controversy concerning the actual cause of these experiences. Some modern physicians describe this state as being induced by low levels of oxygen to the brain, altered blood gases, REM intrusion, toxic and/or metabolic hallucinations, neurochemistry, and neuroanatomy phenomena. These physicians have yet to find a definitive explanation for NDE occurrences nor are they able to propose an explanation of what patients see from outside of their bodies that are later confirmed to be correct and unable to be inferred.
In the eyes of many, NDEs give us hope for existence as a soul beyond bodily decomposition. The messages that people who have faced near-death experiences bring back to this life are about the interconnectedness of all life, which make this life more meaningful and purposeful. How to live this life that we're living now is another lesson that they teach with their messages of hope for life beyond the death of the physical body.
If you ask any genuine psychic whether they believe in near-death experiences, they will tell you that of course, they are real. Psychics connect to disincarnated spirits possibly through connecting to the one mind, which is also known as “God” in most religions. If a psychic can bring back messages that include information that only the spirit and the loved one they left behind would know about, isn’t this type of validation proof enough of life after death?
References:
Hagan JC III, Van Way CW III. The Science of Near-Death Experiences. Mo Med. 2018 Jan-Feb;115(1):29. PMCID: PMC6139799.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-near-death-experiences-reveal-about-the-brain/
Koch, C. What Near-Dear Experiences Reveal about the Brain. Scientific American. 2020 June 1.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6139799/
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